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The Hooded Chair
The Hooded Chair is the last story of Episode 14. In it, a wealthy tycoon purchases an antique hooded chair with little knowledge of its disturbingly haunted past. Plot Steel businessman George Talbot III inherits the family business and a huge fortune following the death of his father, George Talbot Jr., who was a respected and good-natured magnate. Despite being hardworking, he was an arrogant, spoiled, and rotten man who spent most of his time traveling the world in search of priceless relics. However, George's obsession took the best of him when he purchases an ancient hooded chair, which was done on his behalf by his lawyer, Linda Wiseman, who, despite making a huge commission from him, feared the item's reputation, knowing of its curses. George, however, does not believe in such curses and orders Wiseman to retrieve the list of the owners. The next day, George's maid, Jenny, sits on the chair out of curiosity only to be rudely admonished by George, who informs her that the chair is exclusively for him and his guests. By the following week, Jenny was killed in a hit-and-run accident involving a motorist driving under the influence of alcohol. Although George did not believe that the chair had a role in Jenny's death, suspicions arose on his mind. A week after the incident, a close friend named Eric Hayes visited George and insisted on sitting on the chair despite George's objections; in two days, Eric was killed when the plane he was piloting crashed due to engine failure while flying to New York. By the next month, George's health worsened by the cause of events, which also led to his business losing clients, customers, and investors, pushing it to a brink of bankruptcy. Wiseman visits him one evening and presents him a list of the chair's previous owner along with a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte sitting on the same hooded chair. To his horror, he discovers the chair's historical significance and its role as an accessory in his defeat during the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium on June 17, 1815. He then concludes that it is cursed. Later that night, George, armed with an axe, enters the living room, intent on destroying the chair. But before he delivers the blow, he is struck with fatal heart failure. With that, George became the last victim of the chair. Resemblance in real life Two real cursed chairs served as an inspiration for this episode. It is primarily based on the Busby Stoop Chair, an allegedly oak chair that was cursed by the murderer Thomas Busby before his execution by hanging in 1702 in North Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom. Busby was arrested, tried and condemned to death after he murdered his father-in-law Daniel Auty (or Autie) in 1702 after an argument over a coin counterfeiting business they run. One variation of the story has Busby cursing the chair whilst on his way to his execution, whereas another says that he was drunk in the chair when he was arrested and cursed it. So many deaths were later attributed to people sitting in the chair since the second World War, that the landlord donated it to the Thirsk Museum, where it was hung from the ceiling since 1978 to prevent more deaths.